De Mol is the original Flemish version of The Mole, which you might know as an Anderson Cooper joint from the Y2K era, or something that pops up in your Netflix recommendations from time to time. It's also my favourite TV show, and I'll be writing about it—specifically De Mol and its Dutch cousin Wie is de Mol?—as often as I can.
Gilles de Coster took to Instagram today to promote the show, and in a very Beneluxian fashion! The host teamed up with iconic players from previous seasons Gilles (S04), Kaat (S07), Lennert and Annelotte (S09), Philippe, Uma and Sven (S10) and Ruben (S11) to share a series of Belgian bike routes via the social cycling app Strava.
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| "Bike: check. Friends: double check." |
Fans in the forums quickly began to piece everything together, deducing that each cycling route spells out a number: 1-7-0-3-2-0-2-4. It looks like the new season of De Mol will air on March 17th, which does line up with typical scheduling in recent years. If this seems unnecessarily elaborate for a start date announcement, just wait for the actual show!
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| Crowdsolving the Strava puzzle. Love my normal hobby. |
In December, we learned that Season 12 would be filmed in Sicily. A stylish video teaser was posted to official channels featuring Gilles de Coster posing as a detective alongside the actor and former contestant Matteo Simoni; the pair invesigate a restaurant crime scene in which the culprit cut their spaghetti into pieces in a very Italian act of sabotage. The scene also confirms that this year's cast will be made up of "onbekende Vlamingen" (unknown Flemish people, as opposed to local celebs like Simoni).
It's this commitment to the bit that makes De Mol so delightful to follow along with. Producers take great delight in teasing (and misleading) viewers, and there's much more attention to detail than in the Dutch or American versions. The 2022 finale was a grand affair, with bomb countdowns and live challenges, and 2023 had a lot of fun with its cowboy theme; I'm excited to see where they take the format in 2024!
Update: Play4 has since confirmed that pre-season talk show Café de Mol will air on March 17th 2024, while the season premiere of De Mol will be on the 24th.
